ASUS Press Release, Scythe FCS-50 Heatlane and More

Good morning peeps, how was your night? Things around the Canadian portion of the HH labs should be backup and running this the afternoon with the return of my High-Speed connection. No more dialup for this fool ;) Nevertheless, it is getting late and I need to start thinking about heading to work so here is your AM news shot...

Oct 22, 2004- The ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard set a new 3Dmark05 record with a stunning 10,118 points during the recent Nvidia nForce4 launch conference. As the worldwide leader of motherboards, ASUS created the world's first motherboard with the capability to support SLI (Scalable Link Interface) and surpass the 10,000-point threshold.

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe

The ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe is a dream gaming platform with dual-graphics card and dual-channel memory design that supports the K8 939 CPU.Designed with extreme performance in mind, the A8N-SLI Deluxe excels in speed, and conquered many 3D rendering challenges.Besides supporting two PCI-express graphics cards and numerous exclusive ASUS SLI design, this powerful solution also features the popular ASUS AI Proactive features such as AI NOS and AI Net2.And this is not to mention a list of top specifications such as Serial ATA 2.0, 8 Serial ATA ports, 1394 interface, 10 USB Connections and 8-channel audio.

New Record on 3DMark05

3DMark is one of the most popular and respected 3D benchmark programs among editors and enthusiasts worldwide. 3Dmark 2005, newly released on September 29, 20004, represents the most rigorous 3D testing program yet. Over the previous versions, it usually takes as long as over a year to break the 10,000 points barrier. However, on this latest installment of 3DMark, the brand new A8N-SLI Deluxe was able to surprise the industry by breaking the 10,000 mark within 10 days!The 10,118 record was set on NVIDIA's press tour in Munich, Germany on October 7, 2004. The result was achieved with ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard with AMD Athlon FX55 CPU and two NV45 Ultra Graphics Cards.

"In the United States, SUV's are a very common car - but does bigger always mean better? In today's review of the Scythe FCS-50 Heatlane, we will see if this massive heatsink really does the job of cooling our warm processor, or if it's just another gas-guzzler like many SUV's."

"If you're a casual gamer, or simply not into 3D gaming, this card is probably not for you. Enthusiasts with deep pockets looking for a fast card with good image quality should definitely consider the ASUS Extreme AX800XT/2DT."

"Are you backing up your computer? Are you backing up your files at least? No? Do you think you should? Well, this is one of the newest accessories from Coolmax. The F1-B, for short. What it does is make an image of your C: drive for complete disaster recovery. You can backup files additionally from your C: Drive, or any other drive. Sound like something you would use?"

"It seems like it has been a while since the offical release of the X800XT, but it has been only recently that the availability of the X800 XT has reached acceptable levels. In fact, here in Missouri it's still very difficult to track down ATI's flagship video card on the retail shelf. I've even heard that some stores run a lottery just to see who will be allowed to purchase a card when they finally do receive their shipment. VisionTek has joined the ranks of many who are manufacturing X800XT video cards. While the X800XT may take second chair to the XT Platinum Edition, a little Overclocking may make for an interesting challenge"

"NVIDIA launched their GeForce 6 series of GPUs a while back and now every board partner has their versions of 6800 flavors, most notably the regular 6800. This is the most popular version of NVIDIA's GeForce 6 family of products - maybe because of the poor chip yields. If you are not aware of this, both NVIDIA and ATI are having a difficult time producing chips for their GT/Ultra and PE line of products, which has led to ridiculous price increases for the aforementioned models from NVIDIA and ATI. Recently, at an online retailer, we found NVIDIA's 6800 Ultra to be around $735.00, which is way higher than its retail price of $500.00."

"Today at GamePC, we've taken a look at AMD's new top of the line Hammer processor, the Athlon64 FX-55. Despite not having any major architectural improvements over previous FX processors, the FX-55 shines due to its higher 2.6 GHz clock rate. We test the FX-55 against the best Intel has to offer, the 3.4 GHz LGA-775 Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor."

"OCZ makes some pretty hefty claims for this device, such as "vdimm adjustments up to 3.9V*" and "compatible with most DDR motherboards**". If you're like us, the first thing you noticed were the asterisks. Check out our review to see how the DDR Booster performed for us (once we were able to find a board that supported it!)"

"Ok, so you checked out the Intel D925XCV Alderwood motherboard and you are interested in the upgrade but you want something a little more overclocker friendly. Well, if that is the case, the AA8 Duramax is absolutely perfect for your situation. Without a single corner cut, ABIT packed every single enthusiast option they could into their entry into the Alderwood including extensive Windows and BIOS overclocking and monitoring, excellent cooling, industry leading uGuru technology and let's not forget about the onboard high definition 8 channel audio and firewire."

"The Enermax Noisetaker 470W power supply is one of the few products that works as good it is looks. The power supply includes just about everything an enthusiast could expect: SATA connectors, dual 12V rails, 24-pin motherboard support, and 6-pin auxiliary connectors for modern video cards. Best of all, this power supply is stable!"

If that does not satisfy your news craving, I do not know what will ;) - Cheers